Index Archive

27 May 2013

In Depth $100 Billion Oil for Food Scam Volcker Committee Report RTI Rejected Corrupt Saved
About 135 Indian entities figured in the 630-page Volcker Committee report
Natwar Singh and the Congress were named in the Volcker Committee's report in a section that provided details of oil allocations made by the then Iraqi government to various entities and individuals.
All these entities, classified 'non-contractual beneficiaries,' were recipients of oil allocations, according to the report.

Oil-for-Food was started in 1996
Oil for food program allowed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein sell oil to purchase food and other humanitarian aid while the country was under international sanctions.
The program ended after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Saddam was able to use the Oil-for-Food program to amass about $10 billion worth of illegal money through bribes and kickbacks.

The Paul Volcker Committee was set up by the UN in April 2004 to probe corruption and fraud in its oil-for-food programme in Iraq, in which name of former External Affairs minister Natwar Singh allegedly figured as a beneficiary.

Virendra Dayal was appointed by the government as special envoy to coordinate with UN officials on the Paul Volcker Committee report.
Virender Dayal collected documents from the UN, Iraq, and Jordan, running into more than 1,100 pages and a CD containing material of 82,000 pages.
Among these were documents from Iraq's State Oil Marketing company and banks in Jordan.

In its final report in October 2005, a committee of inquiry, headed by Paul Volcker, a former chairman of America's Federal Reserve, found that 2,253 firms, many of them household names, had made illegal payments totaling $1.8 billion to the Saddam regime.

The Volcker report confirms that Saddam Hussein demanded, and got, some $1.8 billion in illegal surcharges, kickbacks, and bribes from companies doing business in Iraq.

It confirms that he steered billions in oil and humanitarian contracts to his politically preferred clients, particularly Russia and France, and smaller sums to agents of influence (or their associates) such as British MP George Galloway, French Senator Charles Pasqua, and Oil for Food director Benon Sevan.

It confirms that Saddam did so under the noses, and frequently with the connivance, of the U.N. agencies entrusted to monitor the program.

Volker found that the AWB was the worst culprit among the 2,200 companies involved - paying out almost 15 per cent of all the dirty money to Saddam's régime.
AWB (formerly the Australian Wheat Board)

The report also provides a list, which runs to 60 pages, of influential individuals or groups awarded lucrative oil allocations by Iraq because they organized anti-sanctions activities and kickbacks.

The report listed 52 countries
Names of Few Countries
1) India

2)Russia

3)China

4)Cyprus

5)Yemen

6)Egypt

7)Vietnam

8)Malaysia

9)the United Arab Emirates

10)Australia

11)France

12]America

Mr. Volcker and his 75 investigators worked hard day and night and prepared the documents and evidence but as it contains the names of rich and powerful no one dared to touch it and talk about it loudly.

Australia was the first country to launch a national inquiry into the affair (in January 2006). It found the Australian Wheat Board guilty of having paid a mammoth $220m in illegal kickbacks to Iraq

India,
Natwar Singh stepped down as foreign minister in November 2005 amid allegations that he and his son had benefited from the scam.

The Justice Pathak Committee on 3 August 2006, indicted former external affairs minister K Natwar Singh and his legislator son Jagat Singh for procurement of contracts in the United Nations oil-for-food programme in Iraq during Saddam Hussain's regime.

Andaleeb Sehgal, a friend of Jagat Singh, and Aditya Khanna, a relative of Natwar Singh, are understood to have received financial payoffs in the deal by getting oil coupons based on the letters of recommendation given by Natwar Singh.

The authority has found that Natwar and his son had misused their position in helping Sehgal and Khanna bag three oil contracts from the UN sanctioned Saddam regime.

Sehgal and Khanna, in turn, passed the contracts on to Swiss oil company Masefield AG which drew the oil and paid them a commission, the report says, adding that on a cut of five cents a barrel, Sehgal and Khanna received a total commission of $1, 46,000, which they divided between themselves in a ratio of 4:1.

The Indian entities allegedly routed kickbacks through Jordanian banks.
The papers obtained from Iraq related to oil contracts issued during the Saddam Hussein regime. The firm Masefield, named in the Volcker report for having lifted oil earmarked for Indian entities, was linked to Hamadaan Exports of Andaleeb Sehgal, who was accused of passing on kickbacks to Natwar Singh and the Congress.

Of just seven people so far convicted worldwide on oil-for-food charges, all were prosecuted in America, which began its legal moves before the Volcker panel reported. Three, including Samir Vincent, an Iraqi-American businessman, and Alexander Yakovlev, a UN procurement official of Russian origin, and other four, including two Americans, got jail terms from one to five years.
They also forfeited most of their dubious gains.

Year 2008 USA
David Chalmers, the Texan head of Bayoil, was sentenced on March 7 to two years in jail and ordered to repay $9m in fines and restitution.
Oscar Wyatt, another Texas oilman, was jailed in November for one year and ordered to pay $11m. Vladimir Kuznetsov, the Russian ex-chairman of the UN's budget oversight committee, is serving 51 months for money laundering. And Tongsun Park, a South Korean who lobbied for Iraq, is serving five years.

in Year 2006 Indian citizen and activist, Arun Kumar Aggarwal filed Right to information application asking or seeking disclosure of a report given by special envoy Virendra Dayal on Volcker Committee investigation in oil-for-food scam in which names of some big Indian politicians had emerged.

A report, which contains names of rich, powerful, and corrupt Indian politicians who did this oil for food scam

In beginning RTI application was moved from this office to that office but finally the Finance Ministry accepted that the file was with the Enforcement Directorate

After this matter reached to the CIC then chief information commissioner Wajahat Habibullah had directed the ED to produce the file for its perusal to decide on its disclosure under the Right to Information Act.

A full bench of the CIC decided that disclosure of report given by special envoy Virendra Dayal after meeting officials of Volcker Committee "may adversely affect the friendly relations of India with the foreign countries under reference

Once again, this proves that India is a limited democracy and Indian citizens do not have any right, have no right to know the name of corrupt Indians or Corrupt Indian politicians.

On Monday May 27, 2013 10.30 AM India Time I will upload the complete 630 page finalVolcker Committee report